Kiva Fellow Stephanie Koczela is on the ground in Uganda, working with Kiva's Field Partner Pearl Microfinance. So, what does it really take to get your $25 to an entrepreneur in rural Africa? Stephanie shows us the obstacles that are overcome in the field to get small loans to those that need them the most.Read Stephanie's full blog post here, and check out the video to see Uganda from the back of a motorbike! Continue Reading >>

Kiva Fellow Kieran Ball has yet again brought us an amazing video sharing his experiences on the ground working with Kiva's Field Partners.Right now Kieran is with one of Kiva's newest partners, TLM, in West Timor. TLM is an abbreviation for Tanaoba Lais Manekat, which translates to "Serve With Love".Meet the TLM crew and learn about the only cashless loan on Kiva - the cow fattening loan - in Kieran's video below.To learn more about Kieran's perspective on the ground with TLM, read his blog here. Continue Reading >>

Come see the first Tweet by one of Kiva's newest MFI partners TLM. Based in West Timor, you can now follow along the tweets of this organization at Twitter here:http://twitter.com/TLMWestTimor Continue Reading >>

Kiva is teaming up with Go Game for a fundraiser event on Saturday, May 23! 100% of the profits will go to the Kiva Fellows Program to help provide training and financial assistance to our volunteer Kiva Fellows working with our Field Partners around the world.

The Go Game is a fun, interactive, high-tech game in which teams compete to accomplish missions. It uses technology to facilitate real, meaningful interactions that foster creativity, collaboration and above all, fun! Without fail, these events provide...

Last fall, we posted a blog on Kiva's participation in a few Consumer Protection Initiatives that have started to emerge in the microfinance industry. Organizations involved in microfinance at all levels are now increasingly paying attention to the clients (a.k.a., borrowers, clients, customers, entrepreneurs).A Microfinance industry-wide Campaign for Client Protection... ... is expected to launch in mid-2009. The Campaign is an ambitious three-year initiative that aims to ensure that providers of... Continue Reading >>

We're excited to announce the roll-out of a new display for entrepreneur repayment schedules. The new display lives towards the bottom of entrepreneur profile pages and has a few improvements over our old display:

It shows Expected vs. Actual Repayments to the lenders (including when to expect these payments by)

There's now a clear indication of whether a loan is Delinquent. You can hit "Show Advanced" to see whether the loan is delinquent because the entrepreneur hasn't paid yet or because the Field Partner hasn't paid yet. In other words, this is a high level explanation for why...

In 10 days we're holding the first open event for Kiva Developers! Nothing too formal, we're just opening up the Kiva offices for friends and developers to meet-up, chat, and hang out. We'll have drinks and snacks on hand, all starting at 6:30pm on Thursday, April 9:

http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/2295671/

It would be great to have people showing off and taking about the applications they've been building, so if you're in the area, please drop by! It's a great chance to collaborate with others and hear from folks in person who've been using your apps....

Kiva staff are just as addicted to the stories on Kiva as lenders are, and love to email around some of their favorite entrepreneur stories to the office. Today's favorites:Khean TolLeonel Sicay Raxtun: Continue Reading >>

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Kiva connects millions of people through lending to alleviate poverty. Read about our partners, programs and loans here. Or check out stories straight from the field on the Kiva Fellows Blog. Have questions? Send them our way at blog@kiva.org.